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The role and impact of private schools in developing countries: a rigorous review of the evidence schooling over the last decade as it has reduced uncertainty for private providers and politicians. Neutral evidence Two studies produce a mixture of positive and negative findings in relation to this assumption, both in the Pakistan context – thus they are categorised as providing neutral/ambiguous findings. Humayun et al. (2013) refers to the absence of private schools regulation suggesting that a lack of service standards may be a factor hindering private sector competition. However, also noted by this author is a potentially positive finding that PEIRA, the main regulatory body, has an explicit function to promote private education providers in the area of ICT (Humayun et al., 2013).Barrera-Osorio and Raju (2011) note a selective enforcement of regulation in the context of voucher schemes in Pakistan, where private schools seem to be given some leeway in terms of the time it takes them to reach minimal standards of PTRs, etc. These authors also provide a positive example of government intervention in private schooling with the establishment of the Punjab Education Foundation as a semi-autonomous conduit for PPP projects in the province. This foundation was the direct result of the government recognising the potential of private schools to improve education outcomes in the light of public sector failings in this area. Unintended consequences 1: De-facto privatization? Some authors (Srivastava 2010; Verger and VanderKaaij 2012) identify an unintended consequence in relation to Indian state collaboration with the private education sector. They speculate, though with limited evidence, that collaboration is occurring in the absence of agreed definitions, without proper co-ordination or regulation, and is largely acting to promote private sector provision without imposing adequate quality controls. The drive for co-operation between public and private sectors is thus resulting in the de facto privatisation of education, particularly given a lack of investment in public provision. Unintended consequences 2: Unenforced regulation as a proxy for quality? There is limited evidence that state regulation such as requirements for the recognition of private schools may set a benchmark for standards in the private education sector despite ineffective or negligible enforcement. Srivastava (2008b) expresses this most clearly with the idea of a ‘shadow institutional framework’ that operates for private schools in India. Essentially, while private schools do not generally comply with the regulations established by the state they do aspire to recognised status or to appear similar to schools that are recognised by the state. Recognition boosts the profile of a school and its reputation for providing quality education and so is a major advantage in competing within the education market. This leads to both recognised and unrecognised private schools adopting similar structures, norms and behaviours as the latter seek to mirror the first and so attract parents interested in quality education for their children. Evidence for this in India is also noted by Ohara (2013) in terms of school managers and their families often using previous experience in recognised schools in order to help the unrecognised schools they own to better conform to expected standards. There is largely anecdotal evidence (Srivastava 2008b) that government regulations and particularly government recognition of schools act as a proxy for quality in the market and so lead to improvements in standards as unrecognised schools seek to mimic them. It is notable that the evidence is highly concentrated on the Indian experience and there is no empirical evidence that directly addresses this view. However there is some evidence related to this issue in Bangladesh, where almost all private schools surveyed followed the national curriculum as required despite negligible enforcement (Sommers, 2013). 38
4. Outline and assessment of the evidence Assumption 15: State subsidies improve the quality, equity and sustainability of private school provision No. of studies = 3: Pakistan (3) *POSITIVE (3) Summary assessment of evidence: Small number of medium quality studies (including one high quality) in a single country context with consistent findings supporting the assumption. Overall strength of evidence: WEAK Headline finding: The evidence on subsidies is limited in scope, size and context (Pakistan), with two of three studies of a single quasi-voucher programme written by the same authors. This limited but consistent evidence indicates that conditional and targeted subsidies can raise the quality of inputs and perhaps outputs (test scores) in specific contexts, and set equity conditions such as increased female enrolment. However, it does not provide insights into whether subsidies improve the sustainability of private school provision. The evidence on state subsidies to private schools was examined by looking at a number of mechanisms – including the creation of state-sponsored free school places at private schools, the provision of tax incentives for LFPs, voucher schemes and cash transfer schemes. However, only a narrow range of literature fitted the search criteria and this focused almost exclusively on voucher-style subsidies which allocated money on a perstudent basis. Supporting evidence The main evidence supporting this hypothesis in relation to quality is focused on the specific context of LFPs (primary, middle and secondary levels in rural and urban areas) receiving public cash subsidies under the Foundation Assisted Schools programme run by Punjab Education Foundation in Pakistan (Barrera-Osorio and Raju 2010, 2011). However it is noted that this novel scheme is heavily supported and monitored by donors, which raises the question whether it is donor influence or state collaboration that is the main factor in the positive outcomes of the programme. Under this scheme, private schools receive a per-pupil subsidy with both admittance to the programme and remaining within it being tied to specific criteria: schools must be above a certain size, meet minimum standards in terms of staffing and infrastructure and be providing education at such a level of quality that a set proportion of their students are able to pass an academic qualification test. Once in the programme schools can no longer charge user fees and must maintain their academic standards in annual tests, staffing and infrastructure (Barrera-Osorio and Raju 2011). The programme has been found to have had significant impacts on inputs such as enrolment levels at programme schools as well as on the number of teachers, classrooms and blackboards. However, the authors note that the increase in programme school enrolment may come from students transferring from other schools rather than previously underserved groups enrolling. Increases in the education resources were not matched by improvements in either PTRs or pupil–classroom ratios which may be better proxies for quality than absolute numbers of resources (Barrera- Osorio and Raju 2011). Attempts to analyse this programme in terms of improvements in actual education outcomes based on annual tests are inconclusive in terms of absolute improvements in student performance. There is clear evidence that programme schools 39
Page 1 and 2: Education Rigorous Literature Revie
Page 3 and 4: Contents Acronyms .................
Page 5 and 6: Executive summary Introduction This
Page 7 and 8: Executive summary schools in respon
Page 9 and 10: 1. Introduction schools or whether
Page 11 and 12: 2. Conceptual framework: the initia
Page 13 and 14: 3. Methodology The review was under
Page 15 and 16: 3. Methodology The geographical fo
Page 17 and 18: 3. Methodology The overall strength
Page 19 and 20: 4. Outline and assessment of the ev
Page 41: 4. Outline and assessment of the ev
Page 49 and 50: 5. Synthesis of the evidence and ga
Page 55 and 56: 6. Conclusion: the effects of priva
Page 57 and 58: References Akaguri L (2011) Quality
Page 59 and 60: References Galab S, Vennam U, Koman
Page 61 and 62: References Phillips KD, Stambach A
Page 63 and 64: Appendices Appendix 1: Authorship o
Page 65 and 66: Appendix 2: Studies included in the
Page 71 and 72: Appendix 3: Hypotheses (H) and coun
Page 73 and 74: Appendix 4: Review process and sear
Page 75 and 76: Appendix 5: Sources Ingentaconnect
Page 77 and 78: Appendix 7: Tools for reviewing ind
Page 79 and 80: Appendix 8: Assessment of overall s
Page 81: This material has been funded by th

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